To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed the entire object, paste this HTML in websiteTo link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed this page, paste this HTML in website

the ucsc review
JUNE 1978
IN THIS ISSUE:
Summer at Santa Cruz
Faculty awards
Lively readers' dialogue on NES
Exploring new ways to learn
Campus funds course projects led by students
Surrounded by books and Bunsen
burners, a group of students run
bits of food from their own
dinner tables through a series of
experiments in Room 267 at Natural
Sciences II.
Another twenty undergraduates
meet on the roof of a Stevenson
College residence hall, take hammers,
saws, and T squares in hand, and
begin their afternoon's labor.
A third group, clad in blue jeans,
T-shirts, and hiking boots, scramble up
a rough hillside to meet a helicopter
loaded with equipment and supplies
for their isolated base camp in the
Mojave Desert Granite Mountains.
As diverse as these activities are,
they have one thing in common: they
are all projects fostered by Student-
Originated Learning Grants.
Purpose of the grants is to fund
innovative learning projects originated
by UCSC students. The projects are
led, taught, or directed by the students
themselves under the sponsorship of
a faculty adviser.
"The program was launched on
the assumption that learners have
their own special insights into ways to
improve the quality of instruction and
enhance the learning environment,"
says Robert F. Adams.
Adams, dean of the Division of
Social Sciences and a professor of
economics, chairs the campus's Task
Force on Instructional Improvement,
funded Systemwide by the UC
Regents. The student grants are
supported by Task Force monies.
No academic credit is offered
through the grant projects themselves. However, some applicants
couple their proposals with other
programs—such as field studies or
student-directed seminars—so that
project participants can earn five
quarter units of credit.
Chemistry Through Food
is a typical example. The course,
awarded a $500 grant, is a student-
directed seminar. It was organized by
College Five senior Peter Broadwell,
who is majoring in both physics and
mathematics, and Kresge College
junior Branwyn Stewart, a major in
chemistry. Tony Fink, an associate
professor of chemistry, serves as
adviser.
"Students in the class analyze
samples of food from their own diets,"
explain Broadwell and Stewart. "We
started off with a group experiment in
homogenization and drying. Now,
students working at lab situations set
up in the classroom are individually
analyzing their samples by running
them through seven experiments they
choose from the fifteen we've outlined
for the course.
"The food analysis problem is
a vehicle for teaching principles of
chemistry in a way that is relevant
to the students' daily lives," say
the instructors.
As in all Instructional Improvement allocations, Adams points out,
learning grants are intended to provide
"seed money" for projects that, for
one reason or another, are difficult to
fund from traditional sources. They
are projects that have exciting potential and that, once proven and established, can be taken over and
supported by other campus units or
outside organizations, says Adams.
A case in point is a resource study
of the Granite Mountains in California's Mojave Desert.
The project was proposed by
Crown College senior Joanne
Kerbavaz and College Eight senior
Bruce Stein. Kerbavaz is combining
majors in environmental studies,
politics, and biology; Stein is a double
major in environmental studies and
biology. Ken Norris, professor of
natural history, is their adviser.
"Our long-range academic aim is
to build a framework for an ongoing,
---
[Photographs] Bruce Stein (above right) helps
unload a helicopter supplying student
researchers at their base camp in the
Granite Mountains. At left, procedures for a food analysis experiment are explained by Branwyn
Stewart to her fellow student David
Mintzer, a College Five sophomore.
---
student-directed research program
that will give interested undergraduates first-hand experience in field
research techniques," say Kerbavaz
and Stein.
With a $520 learning grant, preliminary work got under way last
January in a seminar held to define
objectives of the study and methods
to be used.
The project was subsequently
awarded a twelve-month, $20,000
grant from the National Science Foundation. As a result, Kerbavaz, Stein,
and a group of their UCSC colleagues
are in the Mojave this spring conducting on-site surveys of the study area's
botany, zoology, geology, and history.
Major outcome of the field work
will be baseline information for the
management of a Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) Research Natural
Area, a proposed BLM Wilderness
Area, and a UC Natural Reserve. All
are recently designated sections that
make up the Granite Mountains
region.
Another enterprise with equal
potential is a solar system designed to
supply hot water to a student residence hall at a savings of up to 50
percent each year.
Using a $400 learning grant as
seed money, the three students who
originated the project raised an additional $2,400 from other campus
sources to design the system, buy
please see page three

the ucsc review
JUNE 1978
IN THIS ISSUE:
Summer at Santa Cruz
Faculty awards
Lively readers' dialogue on NES
Exploring new ways to learn
Campus funds course projects led by students
Surrounded by books and Bunsen
burners, a group of students run
bits of food from their own
dinner tables through a series of
experiments in Room 267 at Natural
Sciences II.
Another twenty undergraduates
meet on the roof of a Stevenson
College residence hall, take hammers,
saws, and T squares in hand, and
begin their afternoon's labor.
A third group, clad in blue jeans,
T-shirts, and hiking boots, scramble up
a rough hillside to meet a helicopter
loaded with equipment and supplies
for their isolated base camp in the
Mojave Desert Granite Mountains.
As diverse as these activities are,
they have one thing in common: they
are all projects fostered by Student-
Originated Learning Grants.
Purpose of the grants is to fund
innovative learning projects originated
by UCSC students. The projects are
led, taught, or directed by the students
themselves under the sponsorship of
a faculty adviser.
"The program was launched on
the assumption that learners have
their own special insights into ways to
improve the quality of instruction and
enhance the learning environment,"
says Robert F. Adams.
Adams, dean of the Division of
Social Sciences and a professor of
economics, chairs the campus's Task
Force on Instructional Improvement,
funded Systemwide by the UC
Regents. The student grants are
supported by Task Force monies.
No academic credit is offered
through the grant projects themselves. However, some applicants
couple their proposals with other
programs—such as field studies or
student-directed seminars—so that
project participants can earn five
quarter units of credit.
Chemistry Through Food
is a typical example. The course,
awarded a $500 grant, is a student-
directed seminar. It was organized by
College Five senior Peter Broadwell,
who is majoring in both physics and
mathematics, and Kresge College
junior Branwyn Stewart, a major in
chemistry. Tony Fink, an associate
professor of chemistry, serves as
adviser.
"Students in the class analyze
samples of food from their own diets,"
explain Broadwell and Stewart. "We
started off with a group experiment in
homogenization and drying. Now,
students working at lab situations set
up in the classroom are individually
analyzing their samples by running
them through seven experiments they
choose from the fifteen we've outlined
for the course.
"The food analysis problem is
a vehicle for teaching principles of
chemistry in a way that is relevant
to the students' daily lives," say
the instructors.
As in all Instructional Improvement allocations, Adams points out,
learning grants are intended to provide
"seed money" for projects that, for
one reason or another, are difficult to
fund from traditional sources. They
are projects that have exciting potential and that, once proven and established, can be taken over and
supported by other campus units or
outside organizations, says Adams.
A case in point is a resource study
of the Granite Mountains in California's Mojave Desert.
The project was proposed by
Crown College senior Joanne
Kerbavaz and College Eight senior
Bruce Stein. Kerbavaz is combining
majors in environmental studies,
politics, and biology; Stein is a double
major in environmental studies and
biology. Ken Norris, professor of
natural history, is their adviser.
"Our long-range academic aim is
to build a framework for an ongoing,
---
[Photographs] Bruce Stein (above right) helps
unload a helicopter supplying student
researchers at their base camp in the
Granite Mountains. At left, procedures for a food analysis experiment are explained by Branwyn
Stewart to her fellow student David
Mintzer, a College Five sophomore.
---
student-directed research program
that will give interested undergraduates first-hand experience in field
research techniques," say Kerbavaz
and Stein.
With a $520 learning grant, preliminary work got under way last
January in a seminar held to define
objectives of the study and methods
to be used.
The project was subsequently
awarded a twelve-month, $20,000
grant from the National Science Foundation. As a result, Kerbavaz, Stein,
and a group of their UCSC colleagues
are in the Mojave this spring conducting on-site surveys of the study area's
botany, zoology, geology, and history.
Major outcome of the field work
will be baseline information for the
management of a Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) Research Natural
Area, a proposed BLM Wilderness
Area, and a UC Natural Reserve. All
are recently designated sections that
make up the Granite Mountains
region.
Another enterprise with equal
potential is a solar system designed to
supply hot water to a student residence hall at a savings of up to 50
percent each year.
Using a $400 learning grant as
seed money, the three students who
originated the project raised an additional $2,400 from other campus
sources to design the system, buy
please see page three